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La Tribune Smart City Forum - Paris 2017: Veolia partners cities to promote their attractiveness and benefit all the territories

On 28 and 29 November at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, the 2017 Smart City Paris Forum brought together public and private decision-makers around the theme of "Reinvesting the city", taking up the century’s challenges of climate disruption, energy efficiency, urbanization, and risk management, while also offering citizens a high quality of life.

This year, the Forum launched the first edition of the La Tribune Smart Cities Awards, which recognizes the technological and societal changes in tomorrow’s cities, in partnership with France Urbaine. At this time Antoine Frérot, Chairman and CEO of Veolia, recalled the links between metropolises and territories and presented the Smart City of the Year Prize to Eurométropole de Strasbourg.

Antoine Frérot began by recalling the origins, some ten years ago, of smart cities stressing that, "ten years on, we are still far from having explored every possibility". Insisting on the goal of smart cities - an inclusive city for all - he explained that smart cities first followed on from technology and computing before becoming economic objects, and today are entering a more political phase where "the societal model of cities is still under construction".

Cities sow the wealth they create in their neighbouring territories

In this new inclusive societal model, no one should be left behind, from the populations living with the most insecurity to those living in the territories around the cities. Consequently, smart cities can help give the countryside around large cities the opportunity to benefit from their dynamism, so that a kind of solidarity between urban and rural areas is created. Not only do cities economically feed their catchment areas, they can also be laboratories for new development models that inspire or serve as benchmarks for their peers internationally.

To conclude, Antoine Frérot said, "Digital technology is able to contribute to creating cities that are more resilient, more inclusive and therefore stronger when collectively facing risks. The field of resilience is undoubtedly one of those that will allow French cities to win the attractiveness fight against the world's metropolises. But all this will only be possible if we work from a co-construction rationale in which public and private actors maintain a dialogue with the population."

Eurométropole de Strasbourg, winner of the Smart City of the Year Initiative Trophy

He then presented the Smart City of the Year Prize to Eurométropole de Strasbourg for its Strasbourg Eco 2030 project which aims to strengthen the economic dynamics of the city and thereby contribute to creating new jobs, taking the approach of co-construction with citizens. It is based on increasing the international attractiveness of the city and the territory, attractiveness that is as much economic (via the development of the medical sector), as it is tourism or politically based.

Veolia’s Smart City solutions

Claire Falzone, CEO Nova Veolia, participated in the round table on "Will artificial intelligence and data make cities better to live in?" Answering this question, Claire Falzone reviewed the new urban services that could be made possible with better use of artificial intelligence.

She concluded, "Big cities must have a big data strategy: not just an open data strategy, which consists of making the data from its services available to all those who could make use of it, but really bring entities responsible for major urban public services around the same table, be they water, energy, public transport or lighting, and all share with citizens, with complete transparency, the data they have and so know: 1. Whether it is open data or not, respecting in particular users’ private data; and 2. From the combined data, what services could be designed."